Estée Lauder and Puig End Talks on a Combination
The hoped-for mega-deal collapses: Estée Lauder and Puig have ended their merger talks without an agreement. Estée Lauder is now focusing entirely on its own restructuring.
What could have been the largest combination in recent cosmetics history will not happen for now. On 21 May 2026, the Estée Lauder Companies and the Spanish group Puig announced in a joint statement that they had ended their talks on a possible business combination without result. Both houses had only made public in March 2026 that they were exploring ways of combining their businesses.
A merger would have created what industry estimates put as the world's third-largest cosmetics group, with a value in the order of around 35 billion euros. The markets reacted immediately: Estée Lauder shares gained more than ten per cent in pre-market trading, while Puig shares fell by more than fourteen per cent.
Estée Lauder concentrates on its own restructuring
Estée Lauder justified the step by giving priority to its independent, multi-year transformation over a major acquisition. By its own account, the group remains fully focused on its Beauty Reimagined turnaround strategy, which relies on high-quality new launches, a leaner supply chain and improved margins. The fragrance business is regarded as an important growth driver in this context.
For the fragrance industry, the end of the negotiations means that the ownership structure of two defining players remains unchanged. With their brands, both Estée Lauder and Puig continue to rank among the largest suppliers in the prestige and niche segment and are now pursuing their growth plans separately.